Can a domain rank for a competitive term with no links?
-
Hi,
I know that this topic has received a lot of attention recently (Not all of it good) and I am not normally one to re-open a can of worms but the whole 'Camper Mens Shoes' fiasco has got me thinking.
If you're not familiar with the story then you can get the highlights of it here - http://martinmacdonald.net/the-curios-case-of-camper-shoes/
My question is this - Say that you had a domain (Domain A) that was ranking well for a competitve keyword and that it had a good backlink profile. If you used rel="canonical" on every page of Domain A to point to a duplicate site on a different domain (Domain B) , would Domain B then rank well in place of Domain A?
I know that this probably doesn't have much practical use but I am trying to get a better understanding of the effect of using rel="canonical"
Would the result of doing the above mean that Domain B would rank well without having any links pointing directly to it?
-
Yep I have actually done this (kinda! as a test).
EMD after 3 months of ranking 3rd, redirected it to a non-EMD. They swapped places for about 2 weeks... then it dropped 10+ pages deep.
I cant help but think, if I had increased link building effort over the 2 weeks it might have stayed up.
-
I agree with @activitysuper - it would work like a 301-redirect and Domain B would inherit the ranking power. Actually, I've seen that in action - some people even use a cross-domain canonical in place of 301s (it can be faster, but that's a tricky choice).
Even if Domain B had no relevance to Domain A, you might see some short-term rankings. In that case, though, the rankings would probably fall off quickly once Google re-evaluated Domain B.
-
Thanks again for the info. I am already using the link tag so hopefully I aqm on the right path.
Appreciate your comments on Teapot Creative
Have just had a look at Dribbble and it is on the list of things to do!
-
I did have to think twice about the tag linking to a external page on a different domain - but had a rummage and found this - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html
That link might be a closer fit to the answer your looking for.
p.s like your work on teapot creative, nice and clean.
You on dribbble?
-
Hi activitysuper,
Your expination and link is pretty much my understanding but I wondered if I was missing something.
Thanks for your reply.
-
He is a reference to what Google says it's supposed to be used for as well.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
I personally would say it would have the same effect as if you did a redirect on Domain B pages.
Domain B would rank but Domain A would drop off.
I've never tried it but I'm taking an educated guess.
If Domain A was sitting on say a exact match domain and Domain B was not, then I don't think rankings would be mirrored. So it's not a straight forward flip.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can a linking Root Domain figure be in the millions?
Hi there! In SERP analysis for my chosen keywords, DA level for a facebook page is 97, and the RDs linking to root domain is 42,117,874. So does this site have 42 million domains leading back to this page, making it impossible to beat with SEO? Any help is appreciated as I'm struggling to understand what this means! Thanks 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kati_nav0 -
Penalized domain, starting over. 302 or just add a link that site has moved?
Hello, our .com domain got a fred update and to be honest we need to start over. Now my first idea was to 302 the domain as the penalty should not come with this. Other option is just to have a landing page saying, we have a new address its www.example.es . What would be better?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | advertisingtech1 -
What can cause for a service page to rank in Google's Answer Box?
Hello Everyone, Have recently seen a Google result for "vps hosting" showing service page details in Answer Box. I would really like to know, what can cause a service page to appear in the Answer Box? Have attached a screenshot of result page. CaRiWtQUcAALn9n.png CaRiWtQUcAALn9n.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eukmark0 -
Can I undo a 301 redirect? Will it penalize my ranking?
I'm in charge of building a website for a company that made a mess. They own domain xxx.it (xxx is not the real domain, just a placeholder). Some years ago they 301 redirected xxx.it to xxx.com (they just changed TLDs). Last year they 301 redirected xxx.com to yyy.com (so, they actually changed domains). Now, after 13 months, the company failed and the new leadership wants me to undo everything and 301 redirect from yyy.com to xxx.it. So: 301 redirect is permanent. So, conceptually it's wrong to undo it. What happens if I undo it? Will my ranking be penalized, even if a significant amount of time has passed (13 months)? Will crawlers detect a loop (even if i remove any 301 redirect from xxx.it and theorically break the loop)? Here is the potential loop: xxx.it -> xxx.com -> yyy.com -> xxx.it -> etc... All of the articles I found on the web are quite old and not clear about this topic, that's why I'm asking this question.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | naska19900 -
Promoting as Affiliate by Having Nofollow Links, can it hurt
Hello, we have a PR-5 site http://www.updater.in In it - we are promoting Hosting, Web development primarily acting as affiliate to these companies. All links to the best of info are marked as nofollow, but still can it hurt search rankings as visitors are been directed within seconds to the respective partner I mean - the time which a person spends is pretty low and every page is marked as Affiliate. If yes - How to get this corrected with sites acting of such nature thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi1 -
Redirecting a Page from Domain A to Domain B
We have a page on Domain A, an established and well-ranking website, that would be more appropriate on Domain B, a site that we launched about two years ago. This page ranks well, pulls nice search traffic and has traffic from external links. We would like to move the page and its traffic from Domain A to Domain B using a 301 redirect. Have you ever done this or have you heard of how it has worked for someone else? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EGOL0 -
Are links to on-page content crawled / have any effect on page rank?
Lets say I have a really long article that begins with links to <a name="something">anchors on the same page.</a> <a name="something"></a> <a name="something">E.g.,</a> Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc, allowing the user to scroll down to different content. There are also other links on this page that link to other pages. A few questions: Googlebot arrives on the page. Does it crawl links that point to anchors on the same page? When link juice is divided among all the links on the page, do these links count and page rank is then lost? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anthematic0 -
Are URL shorteners building domain authority everytime someone uses a link from their service?
My understanding of domain authority is that the more links pointing to any page / resource on a domain, the greater the overall domain authority (and weight passed from outbound links on the domain) is. Because URL shorteners create links on their own domain that redirect to an off-domain page but link "to" an on-domain URL, are they gaining domain authority each time someone publishes a shortened link from their service? Or does Google penalize these sites specifically, or links that redirect in general? Or am I missing something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jay.Neely0